An inkjet head has a large number of nozzles, and a desired marking can be formed on the surface of printing substrates such as tablets by suitably selecting the nozzles to be used to discharge ink. Since there is a risk that the discharge surface of an inkjet head collects some of the discharged ink and foreign matter such as dust of printing-substrate tablets, long-term continuous use is likely to result in discharge failure, and therefore cleaning apparatuses for cleaning the discharge surface of an inkjet head have been researched to date.
For example, the inkjet head cleaning apparatus disclosed in Patent Literature 1 comprises a head cleaning part where an inkjet head can be positioned by horizontally moving the inkjet head. The head cleaning part comprises a cleaning agent discharge part, an air discharge part, and a suction part inside a covering that covers the inkjet head, and can perform cleaning by discharging a cleaning agent from the cleaning agent discharge part onto the discharge surface of the inkjet head, then blowing air from the air discharge part to blow away the cleaning agent and dissolved ink, and sucking such waste fluid with the suction part.